Something that was missing from UT2003/4

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gregori

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May 5, 2005
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UT99 had characters and enviroments with ridiculously bright colours, fantastical colors and skies, they werent a problem cause there was good contrast, bright and dark areas and so on! Bio Sludge really stood out in UT99, characters/pickups stood out from their background.

the washed out uncontrasting light of UT2k4 is the real problem!


I dont want a DOOM 3 style dark match in UT!


the industrial maps in ut99 have a far greater range of rich colours
they really used the whole pallette there, aswell as coloured lighting!




The same maps in UT2k4 look like a samey, bland, dull pile of metal ****
they all blur into the one for me!


Epic needs to get rid of those horrible invisible barriers they put in UT2kx/UC2,
they dispell the illusion of a real gameworld esp with the sky.

At least give the player a bit of freedom to travel outside the normal bounds of the map, decorate the outer parts of the maps with sounds and nice graphical features //a far of view of the next map you will be fighting in
some fantastical Alien creatures scavanging, a few dino bird harpies flying in the sky.

Its little features like these that lend to the feeling that the maps is a unique whole complete world with its own story and past, and that what the player is seeing is only a snapshot of something entirely grander!

What they have now is a collection of meshes thrown together that look all the same!
 
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JeniSkunk

New Member
Aug 4, 2005
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gregori said:
I dont want a DOOM 3 style dark match in UT!
I didn't know that Doom3 had ripped off the DarkMatch gametype Epic created for Unreal.
Then again, the only id games I've played are Wolfenstien3d, DooM, and Quake2.

Jenifur Charne
 

Jofo

New Member
Apr 11, 2006
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new here, and wanted to express some things..

I just bought ut2k4, and was dissapointed in the number of people playing, I'm not a active gamer just get on when i feel like it. But compared to the original.. things have dwindled!

I think the problem is that map makers get lazy or drowned in features when you have more tools and flexibility with the editor. Thus resulting in pretty much crap maps. Looking at the old editor, it was lets say simple and limiting, you had to be creative and not so easy to get distracted from your goal.

Seems like people alreadty comaplined on the gore being horribly pathetic. Another thing, I loved doom 3's blood splatter, it ROCKED! we need those. And WTF happened to the shield belt! Why do you gain shields by touching a floating shiny thing in ut2k4!? It looks a lot like quake 3. And what happened to jump boots, this double jumping doesn't make much sense either. Oddly enough i have to double jump to get to the other building in morpheus3, where as in UT it was just 1! The scaling is way off.

I saw the whole thread on sounds so I wont rant on that much. Rocket launcher's sound is muffled, shock rifle; flak cannon, link gun's primary fire, assault rifle, and sniper rifle sound like plastic toys.

I also miss the huge 8ball. I loved loading up and shooting 6 rockets regardless if i missed and the grenades! I dunno what horrible thing they did to the plasma rifle, but that was teh most hilarious gun ever. I loved chasing people with it's altenate fire! In UT i knew it when i see these green balls of doom come from teh plasma rifle, I know I'm dead, but in UT2k4, its just not the same. The rush of knowing death and making a comeback before you are blown up by some dude's shock rifle is just not there.
 

Lee_Shagwell

New Member
Apr 10, 2006
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music in ut24k did sound a little washed out, it just didn't really pack enough punch, although i loved the eerie alien type tracks.

There is 4 genres of music i think that will really set the mood, hard edged techno (hard not cheesey washed out trance), hardcore death / thrash metal, Rap and of course the eerie sound scape type music for the alien worlds. The songs need to be extreme and violent, not watered down. With the rap and metal genres why not hire in some groups to rap / sing about the game, they did that in need for speed most wanted and because of that when i was playing it it felt like the game world really existed.
 
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hal

Dictator
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Nov 24, 1998
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:wavey: Welcome to the forums, Jofo.

Yeah, if you're just getting into UT2004 now you're going to be a little disappointed in the numbers. Especially compared to the life UT has enjoyed. UT2k4 started off really really strong but has died off since the newness of lololvehakals has worn off.

It still has a small, but active and dedicated competitive scene, and content is trickling in. If you're into mods and maps, there's no shortage of those.
 

f.sardis

Member
Apr 10, 2006
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Jofo said:
new here, and wanted to express some things..

I just bought ut2k4, and was dissapointed in the number of people playing, I'm not a active gamer just get on when i feel like it. But compared to the original.. things have dwindled!

I think the problem is that map makers get lazy or drowned in features when you have more tools and flexibility with the editor. Thus resulting in pretty much crap maps. Looking at the old editor, it was lets say simple and limiting, you had to be creative and not so easy to get distracted from your goal.

Seems like people alreadty comaplined on the gore being horribly pathetic. Another thing, I loved doom 3's blood splatter, it ROCKED! we need those. And WTF happened to the shield belt! Why do you gain shields by touching a floating shiny thing in ut2k4!? It looks a lot like quake 3. And what happened to jump boots, this double jumping doesn't make much sense either. Oddly enough i have to double jump to get to the other building in morpheus3, where as in UT it was just 1! The scaling is way off.

I saw the whole thread on sounds so I wont rant on that much. Rocket launcher's sound is muffled, shock rifle; flak cannon, link gun's primary fire, assault rifle, and sniper rifle sound like plastic toys.

I also miss the huge 8ball. I loved loading up and shooting 6 rockets regardless if i missed and the grenades! I dunno what horrible thing they did to the plasma rifle, but that was teh most hilarious gun ever. I loved chasing people with it's altenate fire! In UT i knew it when i see these green balls of doom come from teh plasma rifle, I know I'm dead, but in UT2k4, its just not the same. The rush of knowing death and making a comeback before you are blown up by some dude's shock rifle is just not there.

wish i could say otherwise but thats only the beginning.
you will keep getting disappointed as you play the game. i think the major disappointment will be the weapons. they are nothing like ut99 and the two veteran favs from 99 are now underpowered to the point they are useless.
 

gregori

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May 5, 2005
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JeniSkunk said:
I didn't know that Doom3 had ripped off the DarkMatch gametype Epic created for Unreal.


Jenifur Charne

:lol:

I'm not refering too the ACTUAL gameplay mode created UNreal called darkmatch, I'm referring to the darkness of Doom 3 becused it used realtime raytraced lighting. In many of the clips and pics of UT2k7 i looks worryingly dark,
as you know Epic are using a similar lighting system to Doom 3!
 

f.sardis

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Apr 10, 2006
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the doom lighting engine and the unreal engine 3 are like day and night. they are not even remotely close. unreal is per pixel by the way so its a million times more accurate than Doom 3.
have a google on the topic there must be lots of info around. lighting in doom 3 engine has issues.
if they choose to make it dark its not because of the engine. you can have a perfectly bright map using any game engine as long as the lighting works as it should.
keep in mind that in most videos it seems dark cause its being recorded from a projector.
having said all that, i wouldnt mind a bit of darkness. i had enough light in 2004. the game is not moody and scary anymore and because of that the gladiator/survivor brutal arena feel has given way to a super star fame and glamour feel.
at least thats the impressions i get.
 

gregori

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May 5, 2005
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f.sardis said:
the doom lighting engine and the unreal engine 3 are like day and night.

having said all that, i wouldnt mind a bit of darkness. i had enough light in 2004. the game is not moody and scary anymore and because of that the gladiator/survivor brutal arena feel has given way to a super star fame and glamour feel.
at least thats the impressions i get.


No they're not! There quite similar engines in many respects. They both use per pixel shading effects, raytraced realtime lighting, virtual dispacement mapping on characters etc......Lighting an entire map especially outdoors with realtime raytraced lighting is extremely difficult because the amount of processing power it requires, hopefully Epic has a solution to this in there engine!

Lightness is not the problem in UT2k4, uncontrasting,dull and washed out lighting is!

The Gladiator superstar fame themes in UT are as much a part of the serious as a dark brutal arena is. The contestants are after all the peoples champions,
famous galaxy wide etc. Much of the same fanfare you get in all modern sports and infact in the Arena combat from centuries past!
 

Neophoenix

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Aug 4, 2005
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I wish I could send this thread to Epic, becaue I feel they need to pay attention to this. Esp since it seems most players have the same feeling on the mood and feel of the game.
 

f.sardis

Member
Apr 10, 2006
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epic is reading this mate. make no mistake. the question is: will they listen?
you see to epic our opinions are biased because most of us here are veterans. if epic is after fresh blood our advice doesnt matter much since they will want to make something for a wider audience and not a game that will please the elites and veterans.
 
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Deadmeat

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Mar 31, 2006
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gregori said:
Lightness is not the problem in UT2k4, uncontrasting,dull and washed out lighting is!

Washed out - THAT was the phrase I was looking for when originally writing this thead.

gregori said:
The Gladiator superstar fame themes in UT are as much a part of the serious as a dark brutal arena is. The contestants are after all the peoples champions,
famous galaxy wide etc. Much of the same fanfare you get in all modern sports and infact in the Arena combat from centuries past!

Yes. Ever seen The Running Man? I always kind of imaging the big names in Unreal Tournament to be similar to the stalkers in that film: raging psychopathes that are adored by millions. There was a little of that dark humour in Unreal Tournament. You ever notice one of your opponents in the single player tournament was an ecomomist who had been forced to enter because the general public loved seeing them get torn to shreds? I'd love to see more little touches like that - possibly some really cynical advertising and news reports like you get in Paul Verhoevens films (RoboCop, Starship Troopers, Total Recall).
 
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gregori

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Deadmeat said:
You ever notice one of your opponents in the single player tournament was an ecomomist who had been forced to enter because the general public loved seeing them get torn to shreds? I'd love to see more little touches like that - possibly some really cynical advertising and news reports like you get in Paul Verhoevens films (RoboCop, Starship Troopers, Total Recall).

UT does have that edge to it at times, and could be in that kind of universe.
Those touches work great once they don't become too camp!
UC2 was bit like that!
 

Deadmeat

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Mar 31, 2006
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gregori said:
UT does have that edge to it at times, and could be in that kind of universe.Those touches work great once they don't become too camp!
UC2 was bit like that!

Yeah they'd have to be used sparingly and subtlely to have the desired affect though. If it's too blatant it would feel forced and, well, rubbish.
 

Jofo

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Apr 11, 2006
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I'm not too dissapointed with UT2k4, as i am a mostly single player game type of person. The game is well built, and is a great experience but i think they pushed many thing a bit too far in different directions. For example the weapons, they tried to balance the onslught game type with new weapons, and it doesn't work when you have a good game going.

Lighting is not the problem for the most part, its the lack of proper lighting. The real problem is the washing out effect is caused by bad usage of textures, when you look at something its just a flow of a gradient then distuingishible area. Thats a bit exaggerated but thats how I see it, some maps are good though, and they screwed up big on morpheus.

If unreal is smart then they know they have to think like both veteran and new players, how to transition the new to the middle and up.
 
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gregori

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One thing that definetly sucked in UT2k3 is that they had really strong idea initially, of an Imperial tournament , run by an alien race that had taken over the galaxy 200 years after UT. The tounament was confined to six distinct planets.And then they didn't really go for this theme hook, line and sinker. it was instead watered down too make it compatible with UT, Liandri was brought in for no good reason etc.....................I wanted to see the Imperial palace, the emperor, super crazy space ships, all types of refernces to Rome

None of the maps fitted into a cohesive theme as they were meant to originaly!
when they had the six distinct planets.
 

MonsOlympus

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May 27, 2004
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Originally posted by Deadmeat
Yes. Ever seen The Running Man? I always kind of imaging the big names in Unreal Tournament to be similar to the stalkers in that film: raging psychopathes that are adored by millions. There was a little of that dark humour in Unreal Tournament. You ever notice one of your opponents in the single player tournament was an ecomomist who had been forced to enter because the general public loved seeing them get torn to shreds? I'd love to see more little touches like that - possibly some really cynical advertising and news reports like you get in Paul Verhoevens films (RoboCop, Starship Troopers, Total Recall).
Awsome man thats the ticket, I'll buy that for $1 for sure. No reruns please cause gorge will be back, omg you read my mind completely.

This is why I liked 2k3 so much the intro was so out of the running man its a pitty they didnt have the announcer and after my short syzgy stage I went gorge, never turned back since. The 2k4 intro although nicer in quality didnt have the zing of the 2k3 one, even then the 2k3 one could have been a bit darker more like the ut99 one. I soo loved gorge killing damarus man he annoyed the hell out of me, nice player though. In 2k4 I like the malcolm will be back tshirts they talk about, gorge is pissed lmao! I made a joke the other day about setting up shop and making anti malcolm tshirts, now printed in german...:lol:

Edit: nothing against german people either, just having a bit of fun :)
 
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sinikk

Balance in all things
Mar 11, 2006
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I think the worst example of the scale problems and the 'same mesh used everywhere in six different maps' problem is the final boss map, DM-Hyperblast2. In UT this map was awesome. Good music and sounds, gameplay, concept and atmosphere combinded to make this one of the most memorible boss battles in a long, long time. In UT2004, the fact that the map was stretched upwards to require use of double-jumping in the low gravity, the fact that the boss was far more 'normal', and the way the map played (very, very uninteresting, as opposed to the sudden violent firefights in the origonal map), combined to make a amazingly boring end to the single-player game.
 

f.sardis

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Apr 10, 2006
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i quite like the last battle to be honest.
again you are right about the map. all UT maps have been stretched to allow for the new dodge system. the result is that the structures look as if they were made for titans and not humans.